


i lost something in the hills

by PsychicBananaSplit



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Amnesia, Animal Death, Animal hybrids, Blood and Injury, Brain Damage, Childhood Trauma, Classism, Discrimination, Enderman Hybrid Ranboo, Fever Dreams, Fox Hybrid Floris | Fundy, Gen, Hallucinations, Homelessness, Hybrid discrimination, Hybrids, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Memory Loss, Mild Gore, Nausea, Original Character(s), Permanent Injury, Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Sick Character, Starvation, Trans Floris | Fundy, Trauma, Winged Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), i just love to torture this kid idk why, ish, literally forgot those tags in the beginning, ranboo gets sick, smh my head, very mild, without help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 12,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28582662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychicBananaSplit/pseuds/PsychicBananaSplit
Summary: Snapshots of Ranboo's life, and how he was raised impacted how he is now- in war, in relationships, in loyalty.(If people helped, there would be a lot more people in the world.The problem with that- some humans don’t even see hybrids as people.The divide exists for a reason.)
Relationships: Eret & Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Floris | Fundy & Phil Watson, Floris | Fundy & Ranboo, Niki | Nihachu & Ranboo, Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit & Phil Watson
Comments: 75
Kudos: 598





	1. mice on venus

If there’s one thing Ranboo knows, is that he doesn’t belong here.

Here, that is-  _ here  _ is a small town in the forest, dusty in the summer, mucky in the winter. It’s not big, but big enough to where pollution clouds over the stars at night and the sun during the day. It’s not big but it’s big enough to have the cobblestone roads, cobblestone that gets slick when it rains and icy when it snows, horses run over children like Ranboo as they run past. Maybe not children like Ranboo. There aren’t any children like Ranboo.

This town is big, but not big enough to accept hybrids amongst their citizens. 

(He watched his mother die for her crimes- her crimes of merely existing in a place that she shouldn’t have. Wrong place, wrong time. Maybe if she had been born later, in the future, in a future where she didn’t turn to ash- maybe then, she could’ve been happy, with a husband that didn’t leave and a son that wasn’t as obvious as he could possibly be. In a way, it’s his own fault that his mother died- if only he hadn’t been born with the splotchy discolored skin on his face and the discolored eye to accompany it.)

It’s a big town, but not big enough to be loud. It’s always eerily quiet, here- here being some resemblance of  _ home,  _ Ranboo thinks. If this town, the town that killed his mother, sent his father away, threw him out to the forest for the wolves, isn’t home- he doesn’t know what is.

And he knows he’s more fortunate than most. Most hybrid children die at birth. (When he’s older and in a place that allows him to exist, allows him access to education, he learns that only a small percentage of hybrid children die at birth because they’re immediately killed after- most die because of lack of medicine, lack of resources, lack of shelter- lack of people who would  _ help.  _ If people helped, there would be a lot more people in the world.

The problem with that- some humans don’t even see hybrids as  _ people. _

The divide exists for a reason.)

He’s more fortunate-  _ luckier  _ than most. A lot of what Ranboo has was because of luck. The bread he stole when the baker was conveniently not looking, and the scraps of wood he lives behind because the lumber workers didn’t throw them out on time, and the shawl he hides his face behind from spare fabric he  _ stole.  _

He doesn’t have the kind of resources to feel shame about what he does to survive. 

(Even when he has a home, he’s ashamed of what he had done back when he didn’t.)

If there’s anything Ranboo knows, is that he doesn’t belong here but he’s  _ lucky-  _ so indescribably lucky to have survived for this long.

Ranboo’s almost eight winters old when he meets another hybrid. At first he doesn’t even know it.

It’s a small thing that ends in tragedy.

Rain pours down on the town like hellfire, Ranboo’s hands and feet and other small parts of his body that aren’t covered  _ burning  _ from the contact of water, but he’s used to it. He’s had to be used to it for a while, now. Snow, water, hail- it’s all the same to him. 

It’s raining, pouring outside, and Ranboo spots someone that he’s never seen in the town before. In the past four years of wandering the town that banished him, he’s seen the regulars, the people who come and the people who go- he’s never seen them before. 

At most, they’re his age, probably younger- wearing dull grays and browns and a newsboy’s hat, snug over a burst of bronze-orange hair. Everything below their eyes is covered by a knitted scarf.

Their eyes, themselves, are a keen crystalized blue.

They’re with a beanstalk of a boy, tall and skinny, wearing a similar getup, with round wire-rimmed glasses too-big and awkward for his face, young and pointed- and someone older, a short man wearing a clunky coat and a striped bucket hat, his unusually bright blond hair tied at the nape of his neck.

(Ranboo’s learned to look at the details first- what do they look like, what are they wearing, what can they do to hurt him.)

The group of three step into the bakery, and Ranboo longs to be inside- warm and inviting, torches lining the walls, the oven exuding heat and comfort, falling asleep in a bed in a  _ home.  _ With a roof and food and safety.

Instead, the apartment complex he resides beside just sprung a new leak in its gutter, and Ranboo dodges the instant onslaught of rainwater by a millisecond. 

The trio’s trip to the bakery is short, but they seem satisfied. The oldest, presumably- they all look rather young- is carrying a full sack of baked goods. The redhead is smiling and laughing, swinging their arm with the beanstalk boy’s, and they all look content.

And they must see something, because their eyes light up like the lights during Christmas, and they point to the other side of the slick cobblestone road, and without warning- shoot off across to that side.

Ranboo had a few choices: one, he could’ve chosen to ignore what played out in favor of shivering, and falling victim to his exhaustion, going to sleep with his numb fingers and chilled bones, oblivious to what would happen next. Two; stay awake for long enough to see the oncoming carriage, the oncoming  _ horse,  _ and just watch the kid get trampled in front of him, bloody and broken bones spread along the streetline. And three- do something about it.

Three seems like the much more appealing option, for some reason.

(If there’s one thing Ranboo knows, it’s the breaking of a family. Looking back on it, in his own even more fortunate future, he knows he would’ve helped either way. Maybe it’s his nature, or his experience, but he wasn’t about to just sit and watch the death of a member of a family he wasn’t part of, but knew existed.)

The small redhead seems a lot smaller when the horse bears down on them, a bleak, deafening shadow against their small frame- Ranboo feels the same way. But he runs, and runs as fast as he can when they freeze- (in times of fight or flight, Ranboo doesn’t know what he’d do- he guesses they didn’t either.) they freeze and their eyes are wide with shock and terror, the lanky boy shouts and reaches for them, and if Ranboo wasn’t there to push them into his arms, he wouldn’t have made it in time.

(If Ranboo wasn’t there to push them aside, he wouldn’t have been crushed by the horse’s hooves, either.)

He doesn’t remember the  _ after  _ part, just that he was in pain- blinding, white-hot pain that he’s never experienced,  _ ever.  _ Most of it was in his head, his ribs- probably broken, probably concussed, he doesn’t remember, but he promptly blacks out for the day after that.

He starts not remembering a lot of stuff, after the incident.

(By the time he’s allowed to a library and realizes that the reason behind his horrid memory loss was that incident, it’s already too late- alchemy, magic, science can do a lot of things, but the damage to his brain was so severe that it had to have been reversed at once- and at that point he was twice as old, and there was no point in trying something that would only end in failure. Soon after, he forgets the incident all together. 

And that’s that.)

Ranboo wakes up in the forest, his torso wrapped hastily in bandages and his head pounding. There’s a humming under his skin, a tickling sensation that only comes from water- the kind of pain that comes from the substance is strange and unyielding, persistent, unlike anything that’s just surface-level scratches and scrapes. 

But when he opens his eyes, it’s not raining, but snowing, which doesn’t hurt as much. 

It’s night and it’s snowing, and Ranboo’s obviously injured, but he  _ doesn’t know where he is anymore. _

He’s not  _ home,  _ surely, because he’s wandered the forests around the town for so long he almost knows the trees like the back of his hand, through all four seasons, and these aren’t the same trees as before. 

He somehow gets up, standing on shaking legs like a newborn deer, shivering in the cold- even though someone had to have done the poor bandaging job around his ribs and forehead, they didn’t give him any clothes that would suit him properly for the weather. Just the shawl and scraps, really. Some of it was still stained with what was probably his own blood- from the incident. 

But if there’s anything Ranboo knows, is how to keep moving.

So he gets up on his shaking legs, and starts trudging deeper into the forest.


	2. constellations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When the first torchlight came into view, Ranboo could’ve cried.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit so many people read the last chapter wtf  
> anyway here have some fluff fdjahfdj

It’s been a long time since Ranboo saw any sign of life.

Well, the signs that he’s looking for, anyway. He’s searching for people.  _ (Humans,  _ his mind jabs, spiteful with hatred. Some small part of him was always against them- hybrids are built on communities because there is  _ us  _ and there is  _ them,  _ would you rather  _ live  _ or  _ die?)  _ Signs like torches or farms or even territory markings. Anything that could hint at salvation.

Of help.

Because Ranboo needs help.

He’s cold, something that hasn’t changed since months ago. Cold and hungry. His instincts (animalistic, predatory) got the better of him and he found his hands buried deep inside a rabbit, and promptly started gagging over his bile. He could still taste the copper on his tongue, the blood caked around his lips and razor-sharp canines.

But that was hours ago, and it didn’t leave him satisfied. Rather, it left him in this odd state of nausea and hunger, his stomach growling but settling into a sick, sick pit at the bottom. 

His legs ache from carrying his weary body through piles of snow, even giving out and leaving him out in the open sometimes, and Ranboo has no choice but to sit there and resist the static at the edge of his vision, the pins and needles in his feet and the gnawing hunger in his entire  _ body. _

He has no choice but to brave through it and keep moving, no matter how hard it is. 

When the first torchlight came into view, Ranboo could’ve cried. He would’ve, if he hadn’t spent all his tears on the pain in his hands and feet. Instead of crying, he moves faster, despite the screaming protest in his tired legs.

Torches mean safety, no mobs, no monsters, just people. 

The light surrounds a small cottage, with a shed to the side, and Ranboo doesn’t think twice before stumbling over to the shed, too tired to think, too tired to stay awake for a lot longer. It takes a herculean effort to shove the sliding doors open, but when he manages to do it, he falls into a pile of straw, and everything goes black.

He doesn’t dream.

He isn’t cold anymore.

The shed is almost unreasonably warm, suspiciously warm. Ranboo blinks awake to the sound of wind against the structure, the doors creaking at impact. He curls into himself, bringing his knees to his chin and hiding his nose in the straw, the earthy wheat smell a reminder of his first few memories as a toddler. He feels like a child- he’s still just eight winters old, but he felt like they were the longest eight winters anyone could live through. 

The warmth almost lulls him back to sleep, before a particularly strong gust of wind slams against the door, the soft pouding and the creaking a bit too loud for Ranboo to fight against. Reluctantly, he sits up, blinking out the fatigue in his eyes and stretching. The boards creak again, and he twitches in annoyance - before he freezes in his tracks.

It wasn’t the wind.

Someone about his age stands between the doors, and their hair - a nest of fiery curls - and their eyes - a keen, crystalized blue - spark at his memory but he can’t seem to fully grasp it. Ranboo’s seen them before, he just doesn’t know where.

In the shock of it all, he doesn’t fully realize their darker, unusually small nose, or the tiny whiskers dusting their cheeks - or the fact that their ears aren’t  _ human,  _ closer to a cat, or a fox. 

Ranboo can’t really feel anything in his hands. He can’t shut his eyes, either; he would, he normally does upon seeing someone up close. He hasn’t had an episode for a while, not since his mother died, but there’s no reason in testing the waters if they’re already known to be dangerous. 

But, for some reason, his visitor isn’t scared.

“You’re the boy,” they say, voice shaking. “From town. You…”

From town.

_ From home? _

The incident.

Ranboo definitely remembers it- and that’s when he realizes that’s where he knows this familiar stranger from.

“You saved me.”

The wind whistles in the background, in the huge pit of silence that fell between them. Ranboo follows the movement of the other’s ear, flicking back and forth, shaking snowflakes out of their hair. He almost scoffs - he didn’t save anyone.

“I was just trying to help.”

He’s taken aback by how rough his voice is, and how painful it is to speak. The words seem to scratch their way up his throat, tearing skin into open sores, and it really shouldn’t be that surprising because he hasn’t even spoken in very nearly a year. 

Ranboo expects them to run off, tell somebody about him.

Instead, they come closer, carefully, almost as to not scare him off. When they’re close, they stick out a hand for him to take, and say; “I’m Fundy.”

They blink at him expectantly. Ranboo blinks back, and takes their hand. 

“I’m Ranboo.”

(When he gets a journal, the first thing he writes on is the cover; a fine-print  _ do not read  _ in all capitals. The second thing he writes is the first time he ever saw Fundy - not the incident, but when they introduced themselves in Philza’s shed. Not that Ranboo knew he was housing himself on the property of a future warlord, it was all he could get at the time.

And he’s grateful for that. He met his first ever  _ friend,  _ the first semblance of family that he had a firm memory of. 

In the end, he also met his greatest enemy.)

Fundy offers to bring him into the cottage, and Ranboo almost flings his head off of his shoulders from shaking it so much. Instead, they come up with a compromise of Ranboo staying in the shed for the time being. Later, when it’s dark again and his stomach is aching, Fundy brings him a basket of food, enough for a few days at a time. He’s embarrassed when he scarfs most of it down in one sitting, but Fundy doesn’t seem to mind - she just brings more in the morning.

On day three, Ranboo sits in the straw with Fundy, eating slices of a golden apple. He’d never seen a golden apple before. The day before that, Fundy had presented him with the gleaming fruit and he almost choked.

“What is that?” he asked, because it looked like it was solid gold - a trick, maybe? In the future he would need money but certainly not this much, and all he needed was food anyway, he couldn’t eat  _ that. _

Fundy laughs and brings another one out of her pocket, taking a large bite out of her own. “I’ssa golden apple, silly. Here. You eat it, ya know?” She tosses Ranboo the first and takes another bite. “Gaps heal ya faster. Yer about as skinny as a pole. And the horse looked like it hurt ya real bad.”

Golden apples taste metallic, like iron. They don’t taste  _ bad,  _ but the shock value almost makes Ranboo puke. Fundy laughs again, fox-like and giggly.

On day five, Fundy talks about her family. 

She lives with her father, grandfather, uncles - characters Wilbur, Philza, Tommy and Tubbo - and her grandfather’s friend, Technoblade. Ranboo thinks they all sound rather intimidating. When he says so, Fundy scoffs and kicks her boots against the stone steps to the hayloft.

“They’re not that scary,” she said. “They’re just protective, is all. When yer like us, family’s all ya got. So we protect each other.”

Ranboo doesn’t know if the ‘us’ she talks of is hybrids, or something private.

A week passes, but it almost feels like years. Ranboo learns that Fundy grows faster than normal people - why she looks and acts older than she actually is. Some hybrids do that. He also learns that since her uncles are human, they’re pretty close to her age. They don’t spend time with her, though. She considers herself a true only child because of it.

“Ya know how sometimes kids have other kids to play with?” She says, trying to cheer Ranboo up after she asked him the wrong question about his own family. “I wasn’t like that. I mean, Tommy ‘n Tubbo like me, but they don’t wanna spend time with me cuz I’mma  _ girl.”  _ Fundy says the word like she’s ashamed of it, like it’s a curse. Her eyes are angry, but a kind of deep-seated, unresolved and internalized frustration. Ranboo furrows his eyebrows together.

“What’s so wrong with being a girl?”

Fundy sighs and throws herself down on the ground. “Ugh,  _ everything.  _ Boys gotta treat me diff’rent just cuz people call me a  _ girl.  _ I don’t even wear skirts! Papa says that I don’t need to, and Phil treats me the same as Tommy ‘n Tubbo, even Tech does and he’s not even a proper  _ relative.”  _ She juts her chin out indignantly, huffing into her sweater sleeves. “I’s just not fair, is all. Boys are stupid.”

Ranboo laughs, and shoves at her shoulder playfully. “Hey!”

Fundy rolls over and sighs again. “Not  _ you.  _ You’re one of the good ones.  _ Most  _ boys are stupid.”

“Good,” Ranboo says, and lies down on the straw beside her, running his hands along his sides to warm up. (He pauses slightly at his ribs- he can’t feel them as prominently as before. That’s progress, right?)

“You’re my first friend, Ranboo.”

A strange pride wells up in his chest.

“And you, mine.”


	3. youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve never heard of a kid who knows how to properly fight,” she says, twirling the pencil around her fingers dexterously, fast and accurate, “Tech taught us all. The kids, anyway. He probably taught Wil at some point - Gods know how old he is.”  
> Ranboo doesn’t know how to fight. He probably couldn’t, anyway. He can’t even stomach killing a rabbit - he can only imagine what hurting another person would do to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sleepy bois inc. isn't canon, and i wanted to make this as canon compliant as possible, but i stand by my headcanon that techno was close enough to phil that he passed on at least a few seeds of wisdom to phil's canon kids (and grandkid)  
> also idk if i'll ever mention this, but in this chap there's a fake book mentioned - techno wrote that :))))

Fundy busies herself with spending time with her family, decorating their house and baking together. Sometimes, Ranboo watches them from the drafty hayloft windows and catches her eye; the look on her face is always priceless. 

One night, she sneaks out and slips through the large doors of the shed that Ranboo now calls home.  _ “You’re  _ supposed to be  _ hiding,  _ you  _ rat.”  _ Fundy grabs his shoulders and shakes his laughing form, giggling along with him. Even now, she’s almost an entire head shorter than Ranboo is, and it’s funny just to watch her reach for his spindly, beanpole frame. 

In the morning, she wakes him up early with the basket of food. It’s early enough to still be dark outside, the sun barely risen, just a few wisps of red in the horizon that he can’t see - the cottage is surrounded by dense trees. 

Fundy’s hair is a little longer than usual, starting to trail down her back - when Ranboo first saw her, it was just below her jawline. She’s smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Ya know, it’s getting real hard to hide this.”

Ranboo runs a hand over his face to wake up. “I’ve barely been here for a month, Fundy. I’m sure your father hasn’t caught on to anything, yet. We’ve been pretty careful.”

Fundy pauses, and her lips form into a straight line. “He’s not really the one I’m afraid of finding out, Ranboo.”

He doesn’t know the implications of that, not now at least - and he’s sure he doesn’t want to find out. 

Fundy leaves when it’s still dark. Ranboo waits until it’s lighter out before opening the tightly wrapped basket, so he doesn’t nick his fingers on anything sharp - Fundy snuck a knife in there for him to cut his own apples, once. It almost ended in disaster. 

The package is as it usually is; a few golden apples, with twice as many normal apples, a loaf of bread, milk and water safe enough for him to drink, honey, carrots, and potatoes. Lots of potatoes. He was lent a set of flint and steel to help light fires, a butter knife, and a real, sharp knife. 

On the top of the pile, however, was a book, with a pencil and a note attached;  _ To keep you entertained. Thought you would think it’d be a good read.  _

Ranboo smiles.

The book is titled _ In Peace and War. _

There aren’t a lot of things that embarrass Ranboo - with the way he’s been living for the past four years, he couldn’t afford to be embarrassed in order to survive. Now, as he stares at the open book in front of him, the red-hot flush of shame is apparent.

He doesn’t know half of the words on the page.

(The thing about being a hybrid and being poor is that, chances are, you were born in a place that wouldn’t give you the same opportunities as others, even if you had money. The cycle continues. When Ranboo does his research in later years, and realizes that the time he was born was probably the worst time to be born as a mob hybrid, there are acts and laws being passed to actually do something to protect their rights.  _ His  _ rights. It never occurred to him until he was much older that he didn’t learn to read because of the cycle of poverty and discrimination against his family, or his  _ kind.) _

Ranboo knows how to speak Common because he grew up around people who spoke it. He never  _ had  _ to read before, and so he was never taught. 

All he can think when he looks at the book Fundy gave him is how embarrassing he must be, how ungrateful, and how much he truly missed out on.

Fundy doesn’t come back for two days, which isn’t that much of a problem. Instead of talking to his friend, Ranboo tries to force himself to understand written Common, which turns out to be unhelpful. He has a bit of a headache, and wants to start crying by the time Fundy comes back to visit the shed. 

She comes smiling and wearing a new hat, a beanie this time, knitted and red. In her hands is a small gift.

“Hey! I’m back!” She runs up the stone steps to the hayloft, where Ranboo moved all of his stuff to - he figured lying out in the open downstairs wouldn’t be a good idea. He sits in his nest of blankets and straw in the corner, and shifts over to where Fundy has a place to throw herself down into.

“I see that- oof-” She immediately hugs him, not hard enough to cause strain on his still-bandaged ribs but enough to leave him out of breath for a second or two. She pulls back to beam at him and hands him the gift. 

“Here! I know I already gave ya that book a few days ago, but I had a thought and got you another present!”

_ The book was a present?  _ Ranboo thinks, immediately feeling guilty and embarrassed all over again. The wrapping on the new present is thick and too-stuck together, and he struggles to peel it off, but he already knows what it is before he opens it.

Fundy looks nervous as he throws the last of the wrapping paper to the side, and as he flips the book to the front to read the cover.

_ World Languages: Reading and Writing for Common, Enchanted, and More. _

Ranboo stares at the title in awe, and Fundy chews at her nails skittishly. “I- I know that I gave ya the book ‘n all, but I didn’t think that ya wouldn’t ‘ve understood some of the wording until yesterday, and we were already going to town, so I found this and thought I would help teach ya if ya didn’t know anything.” Ranboo doesn’t respond, and Fundy wilts, scratching the back of her neck and shrinking, her ears flattened out over her head. “Oh, ‘m sorry if this was a bit much, I can go take it back-”

She’s interrupted by Ranboo hugging her, almost crying- no, actually crying, just a little bit.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. “This was the best Christmas I ever had. Thank you.”

Ranboo starts teaching himself Common. It’s a lot easier with the book - he learns the alphabet, the new words and how they feel around his tongue. Fundy helps; she told him that she was homeschooled by her family, and that she learned a lot of stuff that she wouldn’t have if she was in normal school, anyway.

“I’ve never heard of a kid who knows how to properly fight,” she says, twirling the pencil around her fingers dexterously, fast and accurate, “Tech taught us all. The kids, anyway. He probably taught Wil at some point - Gods know how old he is.”

Ranboo doesn’t know how to fight. He probably couldn’t, anyway. He can’t even stomach killing a rabbit - he can only imagine what hurting another person would do to him. 

(He doesn’t have long before he finds out, eventually. He never does.)

The first time Ranboo catches a good look of Fundy’s family was in the middle of the night. He spends more time awake than he does asleep, nowadays. He’s not as hunger-fatigued and he has languages and combat techniques to learn - the first book,  _ In Peace and War,  _ has some displays that he tries to copy. He usually trips over his own feet.

Under the glowstone lamp, he flips through the papers, trying to find where he left off before he hears the far-off crash of a door slamming open. Ranboo stutters, covering the lamp and tossing the book aside, creeping up to peer through the window. His ears instinctually perk up; a bothersome trait he picked up from Fundy. They’re getting larger, more pointed and elf-like, and they get automatic motor controls against his will.

He flinches when a figure stumbles through the door, slipping on the ice and falling back into the snow. The open door showers the man in a yellow glare, illuminating the pink hair and glasses, the scars along his bare arms. He’s not dressed for winter, clearly.

Another person steps out, tall and gangly, wearing a thick, too-large coat. His own glasses - wire-rimmed and awkward for his face - gleam menacingly at the person in the snow. A cowering figure behind him trembles, and is shielded by his arms.

_ Fundy.  _

Ranboo shrinks back.  _ Fundy looks scared. _

“Stay away,” the tall man in the coat says, his voice hoarse and shaking. “I don’t care what Phil says. Stay away from our home, stay away from us, and  _ stay away from my daughter.”  _

_ Wilbur,  _ Ranboo thinks.  _ Wilbur is Fundy’s father, which makes the other- _

Technoblade rises from the snow, heaving himself up on crooked, inhuman legs. He’s really not dressed for the winter; Ranboo can see him shivering violently. 

He crosses his arms. In the deathly silence, you could hear a pin drop. 

Without a word, Technoblade turns away and walks into the depths of the forest.

When the lights go out and Ranboo is sure he’s safe again, Fundy comes to visit the shed. She’s still shaking, and she’s wearing the red beanie from Christmas. Her eyes are red-rimmed and angry, with the tear streaks to match.

“Tech’s gone,” she says quietly. Ranboo wraps her up in a tight hug, sitting in his nest of blankets in the corner, and they fall asleep.


	4. treehouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s not like he can exactly leave right at this second, he still has a long way to go, but now that he’s changed his scenery, from the cold, desolate, gray townside to the shed, warm and welcoming, he needs to move. He needs to find new places.  
> And he will find those new places.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize for the short chapter, i'll promise to upload like,,, a 2,000 word the next time tho fhdjfhd  
> i honestly didn't have much else to write after this 'arc,' so let's say these four chapters are arc 1 because a lot of different shit's gonna start happening  
> thank you all for reading this shit, if ur interested leave a kudos and a comment   
> tell me how to make my writing better hfjfhdjhfdjs  
> (i'm a lot better at writing for multiple characters at the same time, so writing just one makes things quite boring for me and fhdjfhdj yeye writer's block u get the gist)

Fundy spends more time with Ranboo after Technoblade leaves - she even sneaks in to sleep with him, sometimes. She gets nightmares often enough that she needs someone by her side.

“I just don’t wanna bother Dad,” she said, curling up next to the glowstone and pinching her eyebrows together. “He’s been going through a lot with the whole Techno thing. He’ll probably just apologize, is all. Hopefully. I really want him just to apologize. Bring him back.”

Nothing about the situation seemed that way, but Ranboo didn’t have the heart to tell her what he really thought. He offers her a half-smile instead.

Ranboo’s become quite fond of the shed - Fundy’s family never seems to use it during the winter, so he pins blankets on the walls like tapestries (a new word that he found in the second book he got for Christmas), and sorts the small items Fundy gives him on the empty shelves. 

They spar together, sometimes, but neither of them are that experienced in combat and it makes for just a pile of clumsy limbs on the floor at the end of the day. When he finishes  _ In Peace and War,  _ Fundy tells him Techno had written it. “I’m not really all that interested in reading, but he gave it to me for a review,” she explained, looking down at her lap. “Guess I’ll never really get to do that, now.”

“I thought it was good.”

“Thanks. On behalf of Tech, obviously.” 

That night, Ranboo starts re-reading the finished book, writing notes in the margins. He ends up staying awake until the next morning. 

(This was the beginning of his thirst for knowledge - “Simply knowing what your opponent does not gives you the most unique of advantages, of weapons. It is what you make of it.” According to Technoblade, anyway. A part of Ranboo takes that to heart, he understands that clearly.

Knowledge is a weapon.)

Mid-January, Fundy comes to give him actual clothes - not just the tattered and shrunken remains of a shirt and pants he had. He gladly takes all the articles, even though they’re too big for him to wear without tripping over them.

“You’ll probably grow into it,” Fundy says. “Yer an Ender-hybrid, right? You’re bound to grow taller than this, for sure.” Ranboo tugs the boots on after the pants, and prays to grow faster. 

After a particularly winded sparring match, they take a break to lay flat on the floor, staring up at the rafters of the shed. More like a barn, when Ranboo thinks of it. The shed is more like a barn. It was snowing outside - probably the last snow of the year. It was reminiscent of the first night Ranboo stayed in the shed; the gusty wind, laying on the straw at night, the frost on the windows. It was a peaceful sort of quiet.

“I don’t think I’m a girl.”

Ranboo doesn’t really know what that means, at first. But he decides he’s okay with it.

“Alright.” 

(When Fundy comes to him later to explain how she-  _ he,  _ feels now, it makes sense. Ranboo understands. It was the first time Fundy’s cried in front of him.)

January sort of flies past Ranboo in a blur, he spends his days reading and sparring until it’s suddenly February and the icicles on the shed’s shingles start to melt. Every year, he finds that the transition from winter to spring is a very gradual one. At night, the ice will freeze back at night, he knows. Sometimes he wonders if it’s any different in places that aren’t here - that aren’t the town, or the shed. Hopefully he’ll get to see those places, someday.

Ranboo makes that his personal goal.

To travel the world, to be a boundless form of energy that exists on multiple planes, to never rest in one spot for too long. Because that’s what he feels like. 

Like he can’t exist in the same place for too long and he’ll implode.

It’s not like he can exactly leave right at this second, he still has a long way to go, but now that he’s changed his scenery, from the cold, desolate, gray townside to the shed, warm and welcoming, he needs to move. He needs to find new places.

And he will find those new places.

This kind of restlessness festers inside him, jittery and static, pure energy bottled up in his chest and in his limbs. 

(Maybe he’s always had these instincts - he doesn’t remember. Maybe it’s just in his nature.)

Ranboo asks Fundy for a piece of parchment and a compass - he provides both within a week. 

And Ranboo starts his project to map out the places he’ll go. Starting with the shed, Phil’s house in the snowy forest. 

It’s not much, but it’s a start. 


	5. do not stand at my grave and weep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They leave when the snow begins to melt.  
> There was no warning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dudes i'm sorry for the delay in chapter it isn't even a 2k like i promised fhjfhj  
> i've caught the corona i'm dead you've killed me i'm dead now, but also school's been kicking my ass, quarantine school sucks :)))  
> but i'm back with the new "arc" i guess fhdjh

They leave when the snow begins to melt.

There wasn’t any warning - Ranboo woke up in the shed rather early, so he didn’t pay any mind to Fundy’s absence. He started soaking his dirty clothes in a tub of melted snow-water he shoveled in the night before, and sitting back in his makeshift bed to read. 

(He should’ve been suspicious from the start - if he knows anything, it’s that if a routine is broken, there’s a reason it was. His memory loss doesn’t get much worse until months later, right now it’s just forgetting where he put something, or why he was going into a room, that sort of thing. But he didn’t forget how to survive. 

He doesn’t think something so ingrained into his nature would be forgotten so easily.)

When it’s afternoon and the sun is beaming through his windows, and Fundy isn’t there, Ranboo begins to wonder how he’ll get his clothes out of the water and onto his clothesline. He used to have Fundy do it - but he must be busy today.  _ Maybe he’ll be here this evening,  _ Ranboo reasons, and places his book back in the hole in the wall with the others.

After seeing how Ranboo had been reading the same book over and over, Fundy had raided his own room in search for old, worn novels that he had, going as far as to search the rest of the house. “They’re either Techno’s or Wil’s,” he said, sitting cross-legged on the floor while Ranboo spun braids in his hair. “Dad has so many books, he wouldn’t notice if a few were gone, ya know? And Tech’s… not here anymore. He doesn’t have any use of ‘em anymore.”

Ranboo hums in a response, tying off Fundy’s braid with an elastic band. 

(He should’ve been suspicious from the start - Fundy never goes long without visiting him. If he had something to do in the morning, he usually visits before. Being with Ranboo was one of the only chances of being who he was - when Ranboo looks back on it, there were so many times that Fundy had alluded to that and he’d never noticed. When they meet each other years down the line, he says that the moments that they were together were the moments where he felt seen. 

Ranboo never got to say that it was the same for him, too.)

So Fundy had given him a lot of books, and Ranboo’s been slowly leafing through them all. Some of them were old journals with messy signatures, logs of dust and battle and the Ender Dragon (Something that evokes a distant familiarity that’s almost painful, centered in his chest like an iron bullet, sinking into his stomach and pulling him towards a place he knows should be home. The dissociation between the familiar feeling and the oddly averse sensation that comes after any mention of the End is equally jarring and comforting.) The journals were signed, scrawled with a neat  _ Philza  _ and a messy  _ T  _ on the bottom of each passage, and Ranboo read all of them. It was interesting to him. He’d never had a keen interest on anything before.

It’s not like he could afford to.

Some of the books were old journals - others were fictional stories about travel, heroes and villains, gritty and dark in some places and joyous celebrations the next, rather than the in-between, gray reality. Ranboo preferred the journals over the fairytales, but he read them anyway. It gave him something to do, something to analyze. It helps with the pull in his stomach that reading about the End brings, and the urge to leave and never return. The urge to see new things. Having something to focus on helps ground him, keep him stable.

(He finds himself stuck in his own head frequently, too frequently to be alright. Staring into space for so long he momentarily forgets where he is, what he is, who he is. Waking up to an unfamiliar world and remembering just a second later. 

From his understanding, those lapses in his memory aren’t things other people experience.)

The bandages around his chest come off in a week, and Ranboo can’t wait for the gain in mobility. He’s been trying to learn how to fight with the wrappings, but they make movement awkward and stiff. He also can’t get any real experience out of them, either - Fundy can’t  _ really  _ spar with him, unless he wants to put Ranboo at more danger of re-breaking a rib. At this point it might be overkill, but neither of them want to push it. 

(He’s thinking of practicing his form, just to pass the time - Fundy still hasn’t arrived yet and it’s almost evening, and he’s just trying to think of things other than the fact that  _ Fundy isn’t here yet.) _

The sky is cloudless and blue, almost spring-like. The sun, nearing the horizon, is starting to glow with orange hues. 

The icicles are melting.

Fundy isn’t here yet.

(He really should’ve been suspicious from the start.)

They leave when the snow begins to melt.

There was no warning.

Ranboo sits in the shed and waits the entire day - and Fundy never showed. It had been deathly quiet all day. Usually he hears yelling; Tommy and Tubbo playing outside, or the older of the family doing chores. They must have left the previous night, then.

(He doesn’t ever remember being as naive as he was - he even saw footprints. The smattering of footprints from the door to the trees should’ve been enough of an answer. He doesn’t remember being this foolish, being this blind. They weren’t snowed over in the morning, they looked fresh.

Maybe he could’ve caught them in time.

Maybe he could’ve followed, joined whoever left and lived a better life.

Maybe, if he had, he wouldn’t be where he is now.

Maybe there aren’t any uses in maybe’s anymore.)

When Ranboo pieces two and two together and realizes Fundy must have left, he freezes. Not really, he had already been sitting still in the first place - but a chill settles in his bones, and his stomach sinks.

Fundy had been the only person to know that he was living in this shed. This shed that wasn’t his, he was just a random squatter that decided this was going to be his new home. Fundy was the one that helped him, the one that found him and allowed him to stay. Fundy had been the person who fed him, clothed him, kept him alive for a bit more than a month-

_ What was he supposed to do now? _


	6. pigeon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A persistent memory at the edge of his subconscious calls out, and he blindly reaches for it, only to be washed in snow. He’s laughing as he’s running through the trees, a blurry figure chasing him down the rows of shrubbery. He can’t tell who they are, or what they’re saying - just that he knows who they are and he can’t seem to grasp it. Their name is on the tip of his tongue.   
> And, like all of the other dreams, it fades within the moment he latches on.  
> He’s so cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sickfic ranboo to cope with covid hjfh  
> i hope y'all are liking this, it's gonna be my biggest fanfic commitment from,, ever, really  
> leave a comment and a kudos they give me life  
> and if you don't i'll still be writing this shit fhdjfhdj i have nothing else better to do

He doesn’t remember going to sleep that night.

But he must have, because he wakes up in the morning, the sun peaking through the crooked windows and shining on his face. It spills across the floorboards, and Ranboo doesn’t get out of bed in favor of tracing the shapes the light makes, his tired eyes barely staying open.

_ What was he supposed to do now? _

Leave, he figures. He should’ve left a long time ago, in hindsight - to get attached to someone was reckless. He shouldn’t have.

Reckless. Foolish and reckless.

(Deep down, he wonders if they will ever come back.)

He lays there, curled up under the blankets, his arm stretched out on the empty floor. The spotted skin glares back at him is stark black-and-white, more prominent than before. Ranboo doesn’t remember when his skin looked as healthy as it does, or when his hair felt as clean as it is now. The whole month flew by, and he took everything for granted.

The sun creeps higher in the sky, and he can’t seem to find it in himself to get out of bed. The cold, sinking feeling from his realization the day before had festered and made home in his chest, dead and heavy. Time doesn’t seem real or consistent, like one moment runs past and the next is dripping through honey.

Ranboo doesn’t get out from his bed until the afternoon, and that’s only because he’s hungry. He shakes like a leaf when he stands up, unsteady and weak. The blood rushing to his head doesn’t help, either. It seems hotter in the shed, but that may just be because spring is coming and it’s only going to get warmer.

The last food supply Fundy had given him was only days ago, but he should’ve rationed better - he has a couple weeks worth of food left, and he doesn’t want to know what happens when he runs out - or what he’ll have to do when that time comes.

His hands shake as they cut an apple into slices, and he’s afraid that he’ll cut himself on the sharpened edge before he actually does - the scratch stings, but he can’t do anything but watch as the red blooms from his thumb and drips onto the floor. A fuzzy, gray film had been put around his sight, the static covering his vision, swimming under his skin. He doesn’t realize he’s falling towards the ground before he’s already there.

He stares up at the rafters and gasps in his breaths; he hadn’t been breathing. He can’t even trust his own body to do what’s best for him.

_ It’s getting really hot in here,  _ he thinks, and fades back into subconscious. 

_ (He opens his eyes, surrounded in warmth, the crackling fireplace beside him strangely distant. He’s lying on the ground, the grass tickles his ears, the crickets chirp off with the forest sounds. A blurry figure is made out - tall and gangly, sitting up on a makeshift bench of sorts. Muffled voices echo around his head, fuzzy pictures float past his vision like he’s under water. He blinks a couple times, not feeling himself do so - he’s not even totally sure it’s him who’s awake.  _

_ He fades back into sleep) _

Ranboo wakes up with his head pounding and shivers wracking his body, he remembers falling asleep too hot but now he’s too cold and he coughs in shock, deep hacking that rattles his lungs. He doesn’t have any strength in his legs to stand, so he pulls himself back to bed with his sore arms. There wasn’t anything he did to become this weak, he doesn’t understand why he’s like this - he’s not hungry anymore, either. His stomach growls unhappily at even the thought of food.

Once he’s reached his bed, he buries himself in the blankets, pulling them up over his head, but the heat is oddly external - he’s still deathly cold and trembling. The coughing reaches a peak, and after it settles, his throat is scratchy and raw. 

He doesn’t remember ever being this sick. He has memories of horrible summer colds in the town, the sweltering heat trapped between cobblestone not making his stuffy nose any better - and before that, feverish mumblings of assurances and a gentle hand on his forehead. But as far as he knows, Ranboo has never been so sick that he physically couldn’t even  _ walk.  _

The cold bites at his skin in little pinpricks, and his stomach twists up painfully.

Ranboo falls back into a fitful sleep.

_ (He swims in and out of consciousness, of shivering in his bed and the rocking of a boat at sea. His dreams are stuttered and woozy, and he can’t seem to catch on to any details. The visions are gone before they’re even fully there. He doesn’t know what time it is, he starts to forget where he is, waves of chills wracking his body and waking him up only to send him back spiralling into the space of his head. Ranboo can’t seem to ground himself. _

_ A persistent memory at the edge of his subconscious calls out, and he blindly reaches for it, only to be washed in snow. He’s laughing as he’s running through the trees, a blurry figure chasing him down the rows of shrubbery. He can’t tell who they are, or what they’re saying - just that he knows who they are and he can’t seem to grasp it. Their name is on the tip of his tongue.  _

_ And, like all of the other dreams, it fades within the moment he latches on. _

_ He’s so cold.) _

Once Ranboo musters enough strength to get out of bed, he slices up a golden apple instead. His hands shake so much, it must take ten times longer to cut it than usual. As if he would know - the entire day had passed by in a sickly blur. He doesn’t even know what time it is, it was nighttime when he woke up. He’ll just need to wait until the sun rises again.

A bit of his strength comes back when he finishes the gapple, but he knows it’s just going to wear off in an hour or so. He wishes he had asked Fundy for medicine sooner, or at least how to make some. He gave Ranboo a book about potion-making, but it doesn’t give recipes for sickness, just general healing and others that are more suited for combat than housekeeping cough syrups. 

All he can do is hope to get better, enough to leave and survive on his own. 

He’s  _ not  _ going to steal from Fundy’s family - if some even still live in their home. He doesn’t know if the house is empty or not.

All he can do right now is hope he gets better.

(Ranboo goes back to sleep in restless flashes of hot and cold, though his headache lessens with every moment. 

He doesn’t dream.

That much, he is certain of.)


	7. bitter milk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shakes the thought from his mind - even though it’s really just common sense, he thinks, and then shakes that away too - and then tries to find an alternative.  
> He can’t seem to find one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dudes  
> agghghggdjshdjskh

The following day is worse than the last - Ranboo had to fight not to vomit all over the shed, he wouldn’t have been able to clean it up. He finds a spare bucket to puke in instead. A day later and he’s well enough to walk around, but he’s got a bucket-full of his own bile and he still needs to get his clothes out of the tub of water he put them in three days ago. He could use a stick to fish them out, but they would still be soggy if he doesn’t have a way to spread them out on the clothesline and wearing wet clothes out in the tundra is a death sentence.

There are a lot of problems that need fixing, but he just doesn’t have what he needs to solve them in the first place, and it’s the most frustrating thing in the world.

Ranboo had vowed to himself that he wouldn’t need to steal anymore - he doesn’t know how long that promise is gonna be upheld. 

In his endless amount of free time, he starts packing his necessities, wrapping some of the food up in a parcel with two books;  _ In Peace and War,  _ and a journal dated before he was even born. But he has a lot more to pack before he can leave, like his sparse clothing, the more important books Fundy had given him, and something to defend himself. But before that, he needs a bag that can hold everything else, that can be hidden easier than the basket his food had always been brought in.

(Deep down, Ranboo knows that he’s survived in worse conditions. Before he stumbled upon the shed, he barely had anything other than the clothes on his back and a few crumbs - he wonders when he’d gotten so spoiled to the point of actually needing necessities to travel.

He thinks about taking a bag from Fundy’s home, and then again wonders where his morals went.)

He shakes the thought from his mind -  _ even though it’s really just common sense,  _ he thinks, and then shakes that away too - and then tries to find an alternative.

He can’t seem to find one.

He decides to leave when he’s sure the house is empty.

(If there’s anything he knows, is that he never really afforded to be shameless in a world that never really gave him a choice to be anything else.)

It’s night, but Ranboo doesn’t rest - not yet. He’s watching the house for anyone, if there is anyone, to come out before he breaks in. There’s a coiling pit of guilt in his stomach, and it just twists up tighter when he thinks about what he’s going to do. He’s going to  _ steal  _ from the family that he had already leeched off of for the past month. (He wonders when enough is enough.)

(He wonders if Fundy would forgive him for what he’s going to do.)

With every second that passes, painfully slow, his heart beats heavier and heavier in his chest, pounding at the walls. He thinks he might die before the moment of judgement comes.

But it arrives sooner than he expected.

The door of the house cracks open, and someone dressed in dark furs steps out into the wooden stairs. They stand on the top step for a bit, letting the door close behind them before they walk through the melted-snow and muddy ground. 

They vanish in the forest.

Ranboo takes his time to make sure they’re fully gone before he sneaks down from the hayloft to the great double doors of the shed, and creaking them open to peer out into the dense trees. His heart’s traveled from his chest to the bottom of his throat, beating, beating. The blood rush behind his ears is so loud that it brings his headache back. (He wonders if he should wait for another day, and then knows that he wouldn’t have the nerve to do it any other day than this one.)

He takes his first step and his choice is finalized.

The little clearing in the woods has always been quiet - too quiet for Ranboo’s liking. Almost suspiciously so. Like there were no birds, no bugs. Just him and his own thoughts.

He avoids the patches of snow in his path as to prevent any footprints, hurriedly stepping his way to the front door - he doesn’t know how long they would be gone for, and he doesn’t want to know through the hard way. He doesn’t know how far they went, so he stays quiet.

The steps to the door are loud, and so is the wood on the door, but he moves lightly and slowly enough that he commands them to be silent. Ranboo grabs the doorknob, his body shivering in the adrenaline of anticipation, and he looks around to make sure the person isn't back yet.

They’re not.

He quickly shuts himself in the house.

And he can’t turn back now, or the whole thing would be pointless.

The gravity of what he just did settles into his bones and hollows them out, replacing marrow with white-hot shame and guilt. A numbing sensation, like he’d been caught in a lie, spreads from his stomach to the rest of his body, and his movements are almost in slow-motion as he makes his way around the house, someone’s  _ home.  _ That he’s going to  _ steal from.  _

He’s trembling. From the emotions or the energy, he doesn’t know.

All he knows is that he needs to get out of there.

The front door leads to a wide room - to the right empty coat racks and shelves that were ransacked, a mostly unlit area in contrast to his left, a kitchen, with a sink and an icebox and a furnace, with a table in the middle of the polished wood floors. He walks straight ahead to another area of the house, couches and comfy chairs spread along the right walls and a fireplace to his left, the carpet squishing under his wet boots. There’s nothing of value here, so he moves to the hallway. His hands are shaking.

The house would’ve been homey if he were under any other conditions, but all he can feel is paranoid and tense.

There are four rooms down the corridor; one is a bathroom, and it’s the first door that he comes across. There aren’t any candles lit, and he didn’t bring a torch, so he’s lucky enough as it is when he realizes most of the light coming from every room is natural and is enough to see everything. 

The second room has two messy beds and a corkboard full of old photographs, photos of the family and trees and various animals. There were sketches along the walls, too, of the same things. The closet in the corner was gaping and nearly empty, looking like someone was in a hurry to leave. 

The third room was neater, with a stripped-clean mattress and a spotless directly next to the large window. There was a corkboard in there, too - this time filled with papers with confusing dots and lines that Ranboo understands is music but can never really learn. There’s a satchel hanging off of the desk chair, and he takes it quickly, looking around even without any noises from the house. The silence is enough to set him off into a paranoid spiral, and he’s not ready to succumb to his own frantic (animalistic) instincts.

The fourth and last room he comes across almost looks normal, compared to the others. (He tries not to think about how half of the house looks like it had been abandoned and how the other half looks untouched, like a still-life, like someone could still come back.) This room had been painted a sky blue, and the carpet was a pale yellow. The colors seemed bright in the darkened room. Framed photos lined the desk and the headboard, pictures of family. A bookshelf was beside the closet, filled with trinkets instead of novels.

_ “I’m not really all that interested in reading.” _

Ranboo double-takes, and stares at Fundy’s name printed in large letters on the door.

His hands shake.

_ This was Fundy’s room. _

He feels sick. 

Half of his mind shouts at him to move, to go, go, go-  _ you won’t be the only one in this house forever,  _ while the other doesn’t respond, and he’s like a sitting duck, standing still in the doorway where anyone can see him if they just move their head a little.

Ranboo feels sick.

The other hand of his brain wins.

He stumbles further into the room, wandering over to the bookshelf to scour the titles of what books are there, and when he doesn’t find anything he turns back. It’s not like he’d need more books on the streets, anyway.

He plans on searching for a dagger of sorts - something sharper than the knife he uses to cut apples - when the sound of a door opening and shutting sends him reeling back and freezing.

_ You won’t be the only one in this house forever. _

_ (Oh gods, what have I done?) _


	8. infinitesimal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Home and safety, warmth, no hunger and no pain.  
> He doesn’t know what that is.  
> He’s always been afraid of what he doesn’t know.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof it's been a while, i'm sorry lol  
> i promise to update again this week, school's been kicking my ass recently, but thank you! to all the people that have stayed with this story for the duration it's been going on- i literally can't thank y'all enough

He can’t breathe, he can’t even think - he’s frozen in place as the sound of the front door opening traps him where he’s standing. His heart is a jackrabbit that jumps to his throat, choking him with fear and guilt and shame. His blood runs cold, and he doesn’t think anything can warm the chill of dread running itself in his chest.

Ranboo tries to listen beyond the blood rushing echo in his ears, and reaches the sound of someone shuffling about in the main room, a quiet muttering and- feathers rustling with movement. 

He shakes his head. ( _ I can’t- I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here right now.) _

Forcing himself to breathe, forcing himself to move, he surveys the room- two windows, each of them at his sides. Thick books, blankets, matches - a bow with three arrows. Ranboo quickly grabs the bow and slings it over his shoulder with the arrows, he’s seen people shoot them before, it couldn’t be that hard, right?  _ (Gods, what am I doing what am I doing, I can’t keep doing this-)  _

He doesn’t know how much time he has, if any.

Only one of the windows can open, or at least looks like he can open it, but it’s not in the same direction as the other, which faces the shed and will be easier to get from  _ here  _ to  _ there.  _

So Ranboo grabs one of the thicker books from the shelf, and carefully slides a blanket from the bed. The sounds of movement have only been in the main room so far, but he doesn’t want to take any more chances than he has to already.

And just when it seems that luck has been on his side the entire night-

He steps on a floorboard.

A floorboard that  _ creaks.  _

He stands, so still, as the wood whines thinly into the air- 

And so is the person in the kitchen.

Ranboo’s mind is dead silent, so when he can hear  _ breathing,  _ coming closer, down his neck, he can almost feel it,  _ he can almost feel it- _

He barely wraps the book, and the hand that’s holding it, in the blanket before punching open the window- 

-the breathing is louder-

-closer, footsteps,  _ running- _

_ -he can’t hear anything over the roar in his brain- _

_ -the shattering of glass- _

_ -what have I done? _

_ (He stumbles out of the window, the cold chill of snow on his bare palms a steaming brand on his skin, scraped and raw, glass shards digging their way into flesh and bone- a particularly large point that he hadn’t seen juts out of his leg, and he hisses into the empty air. Garbling a few curses in mangled Common, and with footsteps following him, he pops back into the shed. Teleportation came in handy when you were a thief, he’d learned. It would surely leave his little  _ visitor  _ in a bit of confusion for a while. _

_ The puncture wound throbs with pain, a burst of violet gushing down onto the floors that he remembers keeping very clean before. He winces - in the pain and the regret - and grabs a tight roll of bandages. Enderman blood doesn’t clot as easily as human blood, less plasma and all that.  _

_ The roll of bandages was almost up.) _

Ranboo wakes up in his bed, with sore palms and his leg wrapped in what was left of his bandages. A glass shard covered in slick, vibrant purples and blues was left on the ground, with a needle and some thread - none of which were there when he left. It was daytime, the sun hidden behind dense clouds, but he couldn’t remember anything of the night before.

(He remembers that this was when it started to get concerning.)

He doesn’t know what happened to his leg, but it hurts pretty bad. He tries to stand up, to get up, to clean the place, and almost falls back down from the pain. It’s sharp, like the pins-and-needles feeling he has when he touches snow, only about ten times stronger and just in his leg. Ranboo grits his teeth- this is what he gets for making stupid decisions. 

He needs to leave.  _ Right now.  _

He’s officially been spotted - he doesn’t know how he got out alive, he doesn’t remember how he even got to the shed, but he does remember the feeling of his fear choking him, the black clouds of dread inching their way through his sight, the twisting in his gut and the glass shard in his leg, bleeding, leaving tracks-

(This was when it started to get  _ worse.) _

Nothing else looks too disturbed, so he ignores the pain in his leg the best he can to pack everything he needs. The food, the books, the needle and thread - all of in in the satchel he thinks he stole but he doesn’t remember for certain. He slips the glass piece in a side pocket; he can’t leave any trace of himself behind.

As if there was any from the start. 

(Sometimes he wonders if he’s a ghost, if when he was a kid, at some point, he had died, had been dead and gone for this entire time. Like he doesn’t exist beyond thoughts and words, like he’s just been awareness all this time. He’s not physical, he’s barely even human, he doesn’t even know if he could be human. Does existence depend on humanity?

Or is existence memory?

Either way, he doesn’t exist - not to people who think that way. Not to the people who really matter.)

Ranboo leaves the same way he came.

In the middle of the night, on the same path.

He looks back only once, to see a looming figure in the house’s doorway. A person.

An offer.

(Home and safety, warmth, no hunger and no pain.

He doesn’t know what that is.

He’s always been afraid of what he doesn’t know.)

A strike of anxiety passes through him, and he turns back to the forest.


	9. little fang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A toddler looks up and beams at him, reaching up to grab onto his fluffy, grown-out half-and-half fringe, and their mother doesn’t pull them away on instinct.
> 
> (Ranboo finds a purpose - he finds a way to feel whole again.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oof i took a bit of a break, huh?  
> well here's some new character hfdsj i love him he's my child  
> also technically the start of a new arc but like  
> eight chapters is smol and i don't want to divide this up into different works so here have one big monster of a fic fhdjskh

It’s been six days since he’s slept in Fundy’s shed, nine since he got deathly sick, and about fourteen since he even saw Fundy himself. Ranboo’s beginning to get homesick of a home - and a friend - he never had at all. Sometimes he wonders if this is payback.

For what, he doesn’t remember.

Names and faces pass by in a blur. The snowy landscape becomes warm and firm dirt, vibrant grass, apple trees. He comes across a flourishing city, tucked inside a system of cliffs and overhangs. Ladders and ropes help him down to the bustling trade-center at the bottom. The cool earth calms the fire under the skin of his bare feet, callused and scarred, too much time in the water. Some stares linger, the stares at his skin and his heterochromia eyes, but most don’t even pay attention to him. 

A toddler looks up and beams at him, reaching up to grab onto his fluffy, grown-out half-and-half fringe, and their mother doesn’t pull them away on instinct. Instead, they smile too, and let Ranboo pick the child up, letting them play with his hair. 

The market at the bottom of the ravine is friendly and close. People are able to buy tools to make their homes in the surrounding rock, small holes carved into the cold clay and brick. Ranboo spends a couple days on the streets before considering getting a job.

This was the first place he’s ever seen that treats hybrids like other people, like they actually exist. He’s seen some with the small traits - a cow mix, with the trademark small horns, and thicker fingernails - and those with more prominent traits, like a rare ghast hybrid, crying milky-clear tears, the divots in their cheeks, and obviously, half of their body dissolving into white air. He’s seen them work without danger, wolf hybrids not needing to wear collars, piglins able to own their traditional gold jewelry. He’s watched from a distance, and he’s made the careful decision to pursue a chance at a job.

He approaches the ghast, because he thinks they would understand.

Ranboo met Julian at first when he was new, when he perched the toddler up on his shoulders and let them play with his hair before putting them down, waving to the mother and turning to see a ghast hybrid staring at him. 

“You’re good with kids,” they say, leaning against a wall of rock and kicking their translucent feet. Their eyes are red, filmed over with cloudy tears to make them look pink-ish. Ranboo blinks at them curiously.

“Thanks. Kids are great, I think it’s a talent to not be good with them versus the other way around, honestly.”

The ghast laughs, somehow all rasp despite the unstoppable tears raining down their ribbed cheeks. “I don’t know about that. I think I freak the young ones out a bit, you know? It might be the eyes. Or the teeth.” Ranboo chuckles to himself. The ghast tilts his head and offers him a hand. “You can call me Julian.”

He takes it. “Ranboo.” 

And after they introduced themselves to each other, they somehow met every day, whether it was because Julian had a hard day at work or Ranboo needed some sort of shelter from the rare but harsh rains down into the ravine, they found each other to just talk to.

He knew that Julian worked at a shop, but he didn’t know what the shop was, or where it was stationed, but he saw an opportunity and went to take it.

“So,” Ranboo says, eating a sandwich that his friend - friend? They were friends, right? - got him, sitting on a bench in the shade. Julian sat on the ground beside him with his head buried in a sketchbook, his own sandwich long finished. “...you work.”

Julian pauses, and turns to squint up at Ranboo. “...yes? I believe so?”

“And I need… a job.”

The ghast looks around, almost oblivious. “Go.... find one?”

Shuffled footsteps and distant voices echo into their safe hiding-place, a hole-in-the-wall space they found emptied out. Ranboo considers it a temporary home, maybe even forever home. It’s nice and safe, keeps him out of the rain, but he’ll need to post torches into the walls and get a bed, build a door to close the entrance. 

(He doesn’t quite believe that he’s already thinking of a forever-place, somewhere he’ll be able to live in now, and in the near future, and in the time beyond that. He can’t believe that he found a new friend, and that he’s almost moved on from the one he had before. Just a year ago, he had been nobody - a poor ender-hybrid on the streets of a town that didn’t care about him. He’s not alone anymore. Someone cares about him. People care about him.)

Ranboo deadpans at the ghast’s response. “I’m asking if I can work with you, Jules.”

He doesn’t know if it was the nickname, or something else, but Julian’s shoulders stiffen so suddenly and so viscerally that Ranboo almost feels like he needs to back away. His head snaps back into staring forward, and the hand on his paper starts trembling. 

Ranboo blinks, and slides closer. “Julian? Are you-”

He touches his shoulder, and the response is instant - Julian gasps like he’s been burned from the touch, and drops everything he carries to stand and stumble to the entrance, leaning himself against the wall.

There’s an itching under his skin, unpleasant and paranoid. “Julian?” Ranboo asks, softer, standing up slowly to meet Julian’s cloudy gaze. Filmed with something else; animalistic fear, or spacing out, or just not being there. He feels so painfully far away, and Ranboo’s never been good with distance. 

(Sometimes this would happen, Julian would stare a bit to long at the sky, or he would be a bit too quiet, or he would show up with bandaged arms - he wonders if this was bigger than he was, than they both were.)

The milky tears fall freely, now, more translucent and less sludge-like. Julian breathes like he can’t, like there’s something stuck in his chest that’s expelling itself, and he’s just trying to keep it  _ in.  _ He reaches blindly, walking back towards the bench, and he asks, “Ranboo?” in a broken, muted wail that’s all too similar to what Ranboo himself has made in the past, and the distance is so far that it hurts, but he reaches forward, too.

Ghast tears leave burning, agonizing paths on his shoulder, but he can ignore that for now.

(Julian doesn’t want to talk about it, and that’s understandable - Ranboo knows what it’s like to know something dangerous. 

The far-off feeling in his eyes doesn’t fade until morning.)


	10. the bug collector

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the pacing in this story is nonexistent and my disappointment is immeasurable  
> i'm not really happy with this chapter fhdjhfsk i might edit it later stay tuned  
> thank you all for the comments and kudos they fuel me and my bullshit

The sun is warm on Ranboo’s face when he wakes up - that’s one of the small details that he loves about the valley market; it’s warm and sunny. He’d grown up in that rainy, snowy town that he thought he could never leave, and then proceeded to leave for an equally snowy and rainy shed. He feels more at home here than he ever has. The dusty dryness doesn’t bother him - the only thing that does is how loud it can get with everyone passing by, and even that’s not by much. 

He yawns, stretches all six feet of limb out - he was properly measured a few days after he arrived, he still has a lot more to grow, given his Enderman traits - and blinks the fatigue out of his eyes. A bit of shuffling at the entrance gathers his attention, and his ears prick toward the sound. 

Julian steps into the hole in the rock, beaming their nearly-transparent smile in the sunlight. “Good morning,” they hum, settling the package in their arms on the pair’s makeshift table. A pang is sent through Ranboo’s chest when he’s reminded of Fundy.  _ How would he feel if he knew I replaced him with someone I just met?  _ (He knows that he wouldn’t care, either way - the small voice inside him chips back in;  _ Whatever makes ya happy, Boo,  _ he’d say. Ranboo misses the way Fundy would speak, the dialect isn’t shared with anyone in the valley. There aren’t many fox hybrids, either - the chance of Fundy coming here by coincidence is slim.)

He stretches again, making a small squeaking noise and sitting up straight on the sofa. “G’mornin’,” he mumbles, rubbing at his eyelids. He didn’t get much sleep the night before (he chalks it up to casual insomnia rather than lying awake wondering where Julian was, the recurring nightmares of Fundy being gone). 

Upon closer inspection, Julian doesn’t look as cheery as they sounded - they almost look dead on their feet. Their eyes are sunken and purpled from lack of sleep, and it looks like they could fall asleep standing up. They’re trying to inconspicuously press their hand into their side, but Ranboo knows better; the ghast is limping, albeit slightly. 

Ranboo frowns and flicks his ears again. “What’s wrong?”

Julian begins to unpack the box they brought from the market, and their shaking hands drop an apple. They wince as they bends over to pick it up, pausing to breathe before trying again and gasping in pain. Ranboo startles, flailing himself about in his thin blanket to rush to his friend’s side. He leads the ghast to the couch and feels warmth and wetness spring into the side of their shirt.

“I’m- I’m fine, don’t worry,” Julian says, falling down on the blankets. Ranboo can hear them gritting their teeth, pokes them in their injured side and watches them curl up over the wound on the couch. He narrows his eyes.

“Totally. You want me to patch that up for you?”

Julian pauses, staring at the couch cushions. “Yes. Please.”

Ranboo nods. Getting up to find some bandages and disinfectant, he steps in small droplets of clear ghast blood pooled into the center of the floor and cringes. It’s watery and almost invisible to the untrained eye- and his are very untrained. 

“There should be some stuff in the box,” Julian murmurs, pushing themself upright. “We were out, I bought some.” 

The roll of bandages is comforting - Ranboo picks at the edge for it to come loose, fraying the material. He successfully dodges the gathering of blood below him on the way back to the couch. Julian takes their hand away from his side, revealing the damp spot printed on the fabric of his shirt, and Ranboo winces. He doesn’t ask where it came from.

He knows they wouldn’t answer honestly.

“What happened?” He asks, instead. It’s better. Looser. A broader question that won’t dig the answers out of his friend that they don’t want dug out.

Julian chews at the inside of their cheek. “Ripped my stitches, probably.” They lift their shirt reluctantly to show Ranboo the wound - it was, indeed, ripped stitches. About a two-inch gash had punctured his side, the thread soaked with translucent blood. White and gray tissue flashed between the torn flesh and the black knots trying to keep the ends together. Julian stares behind him. “I’m sorry,” they say. Ranboo shakes his head.

“Don’t apologize.” 

(He bites his tongue back, holds the questions at bay. He wants nothing more than to know what happens to them at night, what happens and how to stop it. Nearly every day Julian comes home with broken bones and concussions and cuts and bruises. Stab wounds, blunt force trauma, twisted joints. He wants to stop the hurt, stop Julian’s pain - he can’t. Even if he knew what they had to go through, he might not even have that capability.

So Ranboo sits by and is forced to watch. Day after day. He wonders how much of this Julian tried to hide before they became so personal, before they became proper friends. He didn’t even get hints at it before.

He knows what it’s like to know something dangerous.)

He starts to wrap the bandaging tape around Julian’s torso, and the silence carries over. Patching up wounds is almost second nature to Ranboo, now - almost meditative, therapeutic. He’s gained an interest in medicine, now that he’s able to access books on the subject. It’s almost all he reads, nowadays. (Besides re-reading  _ In Peace and War,  _ and writing definitions in the margins of the pages, he spends his time drawing diagrams and filling in the labels of body parts and types of wounds. How to treat them in certain situations. Healing plants and potions, in more detail. It keeps his energy tapered to invest it into something important.)

“It’s gonna leave a scar,” Ranboo says, tucking the severed end of the bandage deep into the other layers and standing to unpack the rest of the box. “My hands aren’t steady enough to do stitches, I’m afraid. I don’t want to hurt you further.”

For a moment, Julian seems to be in thought, staring harshly into the wall to their right - as if they’ll drill a hole into it with their glaring alone. 

“You have questions.”

Ranboo’s hands pause over the fresh food in the box. His ears twitch. “Yes.” (He just wants for it to stop hurting.)

The silence between them is almost unbearable. (Ranboo wonders when he became so dependent, so eager to please, so eager to attach himself to the next living breathing person that comes around and acknowledges his existence. He hates it.) Julian gives him a calculated stare, head cocked to the side in contemplation. The sun shines through their misty, intangible hair in waves, and it flickers on the floor. 

“I’m sorry,” they say again. They close their eyes and purse their lips into a thin line. “I can’t… I don’t know if I can answer them just yet.”

Ranboo blinks at his friend. (Friend? They barely know each other, in the grand scheme of things - they practically just met. He hates how he became so dependent. He hates how he changed. He hates how he stayed the same.)

“I forgive you.”


End file.
